


Pulling Teeth

by space_marsupial



Category: Mass Effect - All Media Types
Genre: Family Fluff, Gen, honestly it's about time i posted something that isn't sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-22
Updated: 2018-06-22
Packaged: 2019-05-26 19:36:50
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,258
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15007895
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/space_marsupial/pseuds/space_marsupial
Summary: While staying at a family friend's apartment on "shore leave," the Cassi boys deal with a dental disaster when Atria gets her first loose tooth.





	Pulling Teeth

 "Whatcha doin', snack pack?" 

Atria stopped her fidgeting to scrunch up her freckled nose at her eldest brother. "Why you gotta call me that, Nico?"

"Because you are one." He flopped down on the cushion next to her with a grunt. The old couch groaned in protest, the worn-out deck threatening to rip. He winced. They were only in this apartment for three more days while their parents finished up this scrap job. Their dad would be pissed if they broke anything. "Got somethin' stuck in your teeth?" He pulled his sister's hand away from her mouth to inspect the source of her frustration.

"No, it's... ugh." Atria bared her teeth and huffed a few breaths. Her left front tooth wiggled with each exhale like a loose shutter. Nico's eyes widened, mandibles opening and closing with mild horror. He opened his mouth to express his concern, but his voice was caught somewhere between his gizzard and his second set of vocal chords.

Alion's perfect timing came to Nico's rescue, yet again, and the second-oldest Cassi made it two steps into the den before the progressively more aggressive exhales stopped him in his tracks. His eyes darted between his siblings before returning to his omnitool. "Do I want to know, or should I just pretend I never witnessed this?" 

Nico crossed the room quickly, pulling his brother's head close enough to whisper harshly in his auditory matrix. " _Is her tooth supposed to do that_?"

"How the hell should I know?" Ali whispered in response. He pinched Nico's finger in his mandible in an attempt to free himself from the eldest's death-grip.

"You're the one with all the," Nico gestured desperately to Ali's omnitool. "Y'know. Knowledge 'n shit. Look it up."

Alion groaned. "Why can't you ask dad? He's the one that's been studying about raising human kids. Or call mom," he offered, exasperated. 

"Yeah, and what's their first thought gonna be if it's _not_  supposed to do that?" 

"She's _nine_. I've seen her run into more doorways than a fledgling learning to walk, and she _regularly_  trips over her own feet. You really think they'd blame us for one loose tooth?" Nico bounced his brow plates once, clicking his right mandible in a curt ' _no shit_ ' motion. Alion glanced at his sister, who had moved on from trying to eject her tooth via air pressure and graduated to wiggling it with her tongue, and breathed deeply through his nose. " _Fine_ ," he mumbled, pulling up a new search. "Survey says 'yes,' she's supposed to be losing teeth. Should've started losing them sooner, but this is _normal_. Happy?"

"What are we supposed to do about it?"

"Oh no, there's no 'we' in this situation. If dad's not involved, jurisdiction falls to you, _eldest male sibling_. I'm not sticking my fingers anywhere near that tiny shatha's mouth. You're on your own." Ali turned to leave and let out an indignant squawk when a hand on his cowl snatched him back.

"So _we_ have to pull it, then?" 

"Sure, Doctor Cassi, D-D-S, _someone_  has to pull her tooth. We don't have gloves or gauze or _any_  medical supplies for that matter, so how, _o wise one_ , do you pro- _ack_ ," Ali's tirade was cut off by a sharp cuff under his crest.

Nico approached Atria slowly, dragging his reluctant assistant behind him. He pulled a tissue from the box on the table with his free hand. "Lemme take care of that for ya, sis," he offered, keeping his voice soft and level.

She recoiled slightly. "No?"

He reached for her shoulder to keep her still and set off a chain reaction of panic. She ducked under his arm, slid across the table, and bolted for the door. Nico stuttered a series of vocalizations that were meant to signal Ali to grab her, but only managed to confuse the other crested, who side-stepped the escaping human and narrowly avoided a collision that bode poorly for both parties involved. Atria plowed into Janus in the doorway, causing him to fumble the (thankfully closed) bottle of Tupari in his hand. He instinctively grabbed the collar of her oversized Blasto hoodie.

"What's the rush, table scrap?" Janus waved the bottle in front of her. "I was plannin' on drinking this _today_ , thanks."

"You can't just _rip her teeth out_ , Nico," Alion reprimanded. "You have to show her you're not going to hurt her."

"Oh, that's what we're doin'?" Janus dropped into a squat. "I gotta loose one too, look, Scrappy." He waved for her to move closer and spread his mandibles wide. He wiggled one of his teeth, then yanked it free. Janus presented the blue-stained tooth with a wild-eyed grin, made slightly more insane by the crooked left mandible he shared with his father and brothers.

For a minute, the brothers thought all would be well as Atria stared in shock at the unconventional gift.

Until she released a piercing shriek and started wailing so loud it echoed in the tiny apartment. It became a mad dash to shut her up before their dad came rushing in and throttled the lot of them for being in proximity.

The tell-tale thundering of heavy boots down the hall had them all abandoning that task and scattering. Nico scrambled back to the couch, Janus stumbled and crawled to hide behind the tall lamp in the corner, and Alion was left standing next to the beacon foretelling their impending doom.

"You have ten seconds to explain why your sister is pissing off the neighbors," Talus warned. 

Ali's eyes moved directly to the parts catalog in his father’s hand and assessed the pain potential if he chose to delegate that particular task to one of his brothers. The looks on both his cohorts' faces spelled a worse fate. He exhaled in resignation. "Atria has a loose tooth. Nico-" He hazarded a glance at the eldest and swallowed at the quick throat-slashing gesture he received. " _We_ tried to help her in a manner unconducive to a favorable reaction on her part. She panicked."

Talus blinked slowly.

Ali sighed again. "We rushed her and she freaked out."

"Why didn't you just say _that_? Spirits, Ali, you sound like some uppity Palaveni stiff." With a series of grumbles, Talus slowly lowered himself to one knee in front of Atria, pulling her to her feet to look him in the eye. “Your brothers ain’t too good at this babysittin’ thing, huh?”

She sniffed and shook her head. Talus ran his thumbs under her eyes and down her cheeks, tweaking her nose to make her giggle. He kept one hand under her chin and flicked a talon at Ali with his other, then pointed to the box on the table. He snagged two tissues from the box and gently placed one in the human's tiny hand. "We're gonna trade. Tooth for a tooth."

Talus guided her hand slowly to the fang he'd been working loose for the past few days, closed her fingers around it, and pulled. Atria wrinkled her nose skeptically at the tooth in her hand. "Your turn, princess. Terminus rules." She tried to pull back, but his grip under her chin kept her still. She relented, opening her mouth slowly. He was quick. She blinked twice in disbelief when he offered her the red-spotted tissue with a soft "ta-da."

Atria tongued at the gap in her smile and surged into her dad's cowl. Talus grinned smugly at his sons. 

He had one more parenting victory to add to his side of the scoreboard.


End file.
